Page 124 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

IMPARTIALITY

IMPARTIALITY

The doctrine of not taking sides in the reporting of public affairs in the
broadcast (but not newspaper) media. Impartiality is the practical and
pragmatic exercise of an accommodation between broadcasters and
parliamentary political parties (especially the two governmental
parties). It is a strategy whereby reporters are supposed to take
account of: (1) a full range of views and opinions; (2) the relative weight
of opinion (this means that established or orthodox views get priority
over challenges to them); and (3) changes that occur in the range and
weight of opinion over time.
Traditionally, impartiality had to be exercised within programmes.
That is, if you quote a Tory viewpoint you must quote also a Labour
viewpoint during the same programme. Since the advent of Channel
4, the notion of impartiality between programmes has gained
acceptance. Here the idea is that, if the subject demands it, you may
give just one position in a single programme, knowing that others will
give the opposing viewat another time. This development occurred
largely as a result of pressure from broadcasters themselves. Some
wanted to establish ‘positioned journalism’ with its own point of view,
while others objected to having to stop a good story in its tracks while
‘the two sides’ slugged it out.
Impartiality is often distinguished from two other concepts, namely
balance and neutrality. It is intended to overcome their shortcomings.
Balance is the allocation of equal time to opposing viewpoints, where
what is said is less important than the time given in which to say it.
Neutrality is the indiscriminate accessing of any and every viewpoint
without any principle of selection. This is deemed unsatisfactory
because parliamentary politicians do not take kindly to airtime being
given to groups or parties dedicated to the overthrowof parliamentary
politics. Thus communist, nationalist and socialist parties operating
outside the parliamentary framework are routinely denied access
without broadcasters having to admit that they are failing to be
impartial – they are merely not neutral. As a result, the doctrine of
impartiality can be seen as a major prop to the parliamentary (two-
party) system. It is, in the UK at least, a statutory requirement laid on
broadcasters by Parliament.

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